Not for the first time, she wished their bond was strong enough that she could feel where he was. It would save her quite the hunt every evening.
Riana was no stranger to building things, and she helped out where she could, but most of the time she was more like the acting provost than Ash. People couldn’t always find him, and sometimes even when they did find him, they didn’t want to interrupt him as he was either mid-spell or high up and building something. It was pure folly to interrupt a wizard while he worked. So they went to Riana instead, who knew just as much of what was going on as Ash did, and was just as conversant with the laws. After all, she helped to create them. It was she more often than not who settled disputes and handled the governmental side of things in the settlement.
Their paths were so different from each other’s on a day-to-day basis that Riana basically only saw Ash over breakfast and at night. What she saw and felt during those times did not encourage her. But she kept assuring herself that they were almost done. After nearly a month and a half’s work, even with the bandit interruption, they had completed the inn and the bakery, the smithy and the carpentry shop, and the tannery. The lumber mill was close enough to completion that they were already using it, although there was still some odds and ends left to do, same with the butcher shop.
Once they were completely done with those buildings, and had the marketplace set up, then Ash could rest. Or at least take it a little easier. The houses were the responsibility of the people that would live in them. Edvard had contracted builders over here, of course, and people would be able to use them. But Ash’s responsibility of building the settlement ended at streets and the major buildings that were needed in order to run the place. The houses were not his responsibility.
If she saw him building on any of the houses, she’d be sure to grab an ear and drag him away from it, too. The man had enough to do without taking on additional projects.
They hadn’t suffered any repeat attacks by the bandits but it was early days yet to make any judgments. Maybe another bandit gang would try for the settlement, maybe they wouldn’t, but it would take more time to tell. Until then, people kept weapons close by and didn’t breathe a word of complaint about a ward set up every night.
Now that they had all of the walls up, it was time to paint things. Although she hadn’t had a chance to talk to Ash about that yet. No matter what anyone else said, she was not going to allow the whole settlement to be painted that awful shade of yellow. A girl had her limits and Riana wouldn’t live day in and day out with that color brutalizing her eyeballs.
Ash came back to their campsite and dropped like he was a puppet that someone had taken all the pins out of. Riana had pity, seeing his exhaustion, and fetched him a mug of water, which he downed in thirsty gulps before collapsing again.
“Did ye eat?”
“Mistress Nicole tracked me down and made sure of it. Did you say something to them, by chance? They seem determined to feed me every time they see me.”
Riana put on her best innocent face. “That be their job, to feed people.”
“Is that it?” He blew out a steady breath. “The lumber mill is done.”
She clapped, happy and relieved to hear it. “Good! Then it just be the butcher shop and the marketplace to finish, and ye be a free man.”
“Free to clear more land and get ready for fall planting, you mean. Is there anything else I need to do?”
“Change paint colors?” she asked hopefully.
Ash lifted his head enough to stare at her fuzzily. “Something wrong with the paint?”
“Eighteen barrels of awful yellow,” she explained succinctly.
“Ouch. All of the same color? Who would do that?”
“Some thrifty soul with the sense of a mayfly.”
Ash laughed and sank back onto the grass. “Alright. That’s an easy fix.”
“The women have an idea or three of what colors they like. Ye might want to check with them afore changing anything.” She didn’t get a response. At this angle, she couldn’t see much of his face in the firelight. “Ash?” Was he asleep? “A~sh.”
Still no answer.
Rocking up to her knees, she bent over him and found him to be fast asleep, so deeply in fact that he wasn’t even twitching. Shaking her head, she fetched something to pillow his head and laid a blanket over him. Fortunately it was a warm, clear night, so he should be able to sleep outdoors without any problem. If the man was tired enough to fall asleep on her during the middle of a conversation, then let him sleep. She could tell him what he needed to know in the morning.
She’d meant to ask him if he’d heard anything from Estole. It had been very quiet over there the past several days, no problems being reported, which she took as a good sign. Mayhap all was going well in the mainland and there wasn’t anything more for her to worry about.
Hoping things stayed that way, she rolled onto her own bedroll and called it a night.
Chapter Seven
“What do you mean, we’re running out of money?” Edvard repeated, voice rising.
“We’re running out of hard coin,” Troi expounded. “To be exact.”
Broden listened to this report with a sinking sensation in his stomach. He did not understand the nuances of ruling a people, or forming a government, but he knew one basic fact to hold true: nothing could be done without money. Not even kings got very far without it.
He and Ashlynn were in Edvard’s office, giving a report on the city and coming to speak about another issue altogether, so it was pure coincidence they heard this other report as it was being given. He was about to ask just how serious this was when Edvard dropped his head to his desk in a loud thunk. “That bad, eh?”
“That bad,” Ashlynn confirmed darkly. She looked worried, too, and this was a lass that was not worried by much. Ashlynn’s approach to life was direct. If it caused her trouble, she was as likely to punch a hole through it as she was to fix it. “In history, there have been wars that ended and kingdoms that fell for the simple lack of money. Troi, what’s causing this?”
“Iysh finally managed to stop all trade. Even sea trade.” Troi spread his hands, palm up. “Without any export/import going on, we have limited coin available in the city and it just doesn’t cover every person. Coin shortages started early this week, but this morning I actually saw people writing out vouchers and carrying them about like they’re money, it’s gotten that bad.”
Something that might have been the word ‘vouchers’ was wailed against the wood. Edvard still had not raised his head from the desk.
“Edvard.” Ashlynn bit at her bottom lip before asking, “Can we support the settlement like this?”
“Not at all.” Edvard finally lifted his head. The lines around his eyes and mouth made him look a decade older. Had the man been sleeping properly? “We’ll have to stop all support to them immediately. They’re on their own until we get a solution to this problem.”
“Only one possible solution, to my mind.”
Broden looked at her sideways. “Make our own money?”
She pointed a finger at him, nodding. “That’s it. We make our own currency.”
“Out of what?”
“I’m assuming The Land Northward has ore. Let’s get more contractors out there to mine it out. We can make our own coins that way. Until then, we issue a more formal version of the vouchers, something that we can make easily.”
“Wood?” Broden suggested. “The way Ash be felling trees, we have plenty of timber lying about.”
“And who’s going to carve these things?” Edvard raised a hand. “Wait, that was a stupid question. We have more idle hands than I care to recall offhand. We’ll contract it out.”
“Best use of manpower,” Troi agreed. “Sire, should I stop the use of vouchers?”
Edvard considered it for a long moment before shaking his head. “No. No, it’s the only sensible solution to the problem until I can offer something as a substitute. It’s not like I can
tell people to not buy anything until then. Ashlynn, you have a list of people that need something constructive to do?”
“It’s probably not as long of a list as you think it is, but yes, I do.”
“Find as many people as you need to. Get started on this today. For now, just use the same currency values as Iysh. We’ll sit down and discuss this with all of the provosts after dinner tonight. Troi, spread the word to them that we need to meet.”
Broden cleared his throat. “Edvard, be ye forgetting something?”
Giving him a perfectly blank look, Edvard parroted, “Something?”
“A little something called bandits?”
“We haven’t heard anything from them in over two weeks,” Edvard responded. “Doesn’t that mean they gave up?”
“Iysh hasn’t responded in over three months,” Ashlynn pointed out sweetly. “Does that mean they gave up too?”
Edvard’s mouth went flat, jaw flexing as he gave a Look at his sister. “I stand corrected. Broden, you’re our bandit expert. What do you think is likely to happen?”
“Belike one of two things be happening right now.” Broden put his hands comfortably in his pockets, rocking a little on his heels. “Two gangs have lost a lot of manpower because of us. It belike caused a power vacuum. Odds be that they be fighting it out with the other gangs, struggling to hold onto their territory. Whether they win or lose no’ be important to us, but it does buy us peace and time.”
Ashlynn nibbled at her thumb, thinking hard. “How long will this last?”
“No way of knowing. Now, other thing be this: they likely had a few that escaped us, running tail back home. Those that did will report to their bosses and tell them all they know. So, could be we have other gangs eyeing us as a prize. Could be they decide we no’ be worth the effort. That too be any man’s guess.”
“Broden.”
“Aye.”
“That was not in the least comforting,” the Estolian King said.
“My apologies on that.” Broden shrugged, resigned. “I been fighting around these thugs most of me life, Edvard. Their tactics do no’ change much. I give it good odds it be one or the other happening now. Whether they come again in the future? Well, I do no’ know for certain but I give it fair odds they will. Aside from attacking Senn, and Cloud’s Rest itself, they do no’ have much in the way of ready targets.”
Edvard scrubbed both hands over his face. “Noted. But I can’t dwell on what-ifs right now. We’ll arrange protection for the miners, once we find a place to mine the metals we need, and hope for the best. Troi, take that into consideration as well.”
“Sire.” Troi gave a proper bow as both acknowledgement and dismissal before turning sharply on his heel and leaving the study.
Broden studied his king with narrowed eyes. Edvard’s hair looked downright unruly, and even though he was as neatly turned out as usual, the way his shoulders sagged spoke of fatigue. “Edvard. Pace yerself.”
Edvard looked up at him with a dry smile. “I take it I look terrible.”
“You do,” his blood-sister informed him bluntly. “I think you need a nap.”
“It won’t do any good,” he negated wearily. “My mind won’t shut off and let me rest.”
“Then I’ll give you a very nice potion that will fell a whale. Sleep, Edvard. No one makes good decisions while sleep deprived.”
Wise words. Edvard apparently realized the same, as he braced his hands on his desk and pushed himself up to his feet. The way he did so was akin to a man lifting the whole world on his shoulders.
“Fine, Ashlynn. Give me your wonderful potion but wake me before dinner. And while I’m sleeping, the two of you can think of a solution to feeding people, as I don’t think we’ll have enough food come spring.”
Not at the rate their population was expanding. Especially since all trade with Iysh was now completely cut off. That was one problem that magic couldn’t just conjure up a solution to.
“We be thinking about it,” Broden assured him. “Now, shoo.”
“Shoo, is it?” Edvard chuckled softly as he weaved toward the door. “Shoo, he says. This from a man that was nervous and awed the first time he met me.”
“I will be properly awed again after yer nap,” Broden drawled.
The sleep-deprived king thought this hilarious. He laughed all the way out the door. Ashlynn apparently decided that this signaled an end to his sanity, as she grabbed him by the shoulders and frog marched him the rest of the way to his room. Broden followed as far as the man’s bedroom door, then stayed there and guarded it. Anyone that tried to approach, he re-directed to someone else. Really, half of the questions they had should have been asked of another person. Edvard’s attempt at delegating to his provosts was not working well. The man needed to be more firm about sending requests to the right people in charge. Otherwise he would set a bad trend and work himself into the ground.
Ashlynn came back out, shutting the door firmly behind her and whispering a word that Broden recognized as a locking spell. “Ye be locking the man in?”
“More like I’m locking other people out. The only person that can leave readily is Edvard.” For just a moment, she let her own fatigue show. “His head barely hit the pillow before he was fast asleep.”
“Potion be a good one, I take it.”
“I didn’t get the potion into him before he sat on the bed. He was that tired.” Ashlynn ran shaking fingers over her head. “I’m worried, Broden. What about the people that we sent across the channel? If we have no money....”
Aye, he was worried about that too. But not as much as Ashlynn. He put an arm around her shoulders and hugged her to his chest. “Brace up, lass. They be fine. There be game aplenty over there; they will no’ starve. And there be timber, and ore, and like as no’ a lot of other things they have no’ discovered yet. We be in more of a pickle than they.”
“True, they could hunt.” She snorted and there was only a trace of amusement in the sound. “It might end up that they have to feed us.”
There be truth. “Best I think to tackle one problem at a time. Let us start with the one that we have a notion of how to solve. What do we need in order to make money?”
Ashlynn pushed gently away and found her own feet, re-centering herself. “Offhand, I’m not quite sure. A lot of it needs to be decided with the provosts. The denominations, the amounts, how much needs to be made, etcera. But there are some things that we can do to speed the process along. We can find artists to design the money for us and have them ready to go. I can contact Ash and alert him that he needs to be searching for ore so that we know what materials we have to work with.”
He watched her as she started to put together a mental list of things to do. How did women do this? They went from being depressed and in low spirits to energetic and ready to tackle the world all within a minute. He had watched his Riana do the same thing several times. Broden smiled as he suggested, “Best to talk to Ash first, I think.”
Nodding in agreement, she lifted a hand to her ear and called her brother’s name distinctly. “Ash.”
Ash cupped a hand to his ear and listened intently for several moments before growling in disbelief, “We’re what?”
Riana stopped dead in her tracks. She didn’t like the tone in his voice, not at all. They had been in the middle of discussing which land needed to be cleared next to make room for a marketplace when the call from his sister had come in. Whatever it was that Ashlynn was saying was not good news.
“I take it that I need to go looking right now. Yes, alright. I know that you need an answer on this soon, but I’m not sure if I can deliver one by the time that the provosts meet. As long as you realize that. Fine, I’ll look now. Go find an artist or ten.” He dropped his hand and looked at his partner. “We are running out of money in Estole.”
Riana’s mouth dropped open in dismay. “What do we do?”
“Make our own money. It is the only thing we can do.”
He said t
hat so simply, but it must be more complex than that.
Ash looked at the water pouch at his waist and peered inside. “I think we have enough to do a bit of a hike with. Let’s go exploring, shall we?”
It was safe enough to do that at the moment. They hadn’t seen hide nor hair of a bandit. Still, she made sure she had a full quiver of arrows before joining him. He had mentioned something to Ashlynn about looking, but Riana wasn’t sure what they were looking for. “So,” she queried as she followed him further into the woods, “what be we looking for?”
“Precious metal. Or I should say, ore to make metal with. The Land Northward is a very mountainous region so odds are good that we have plenty of ore, aside from iron, here to work with. If I can find it.”
Riana looked around her, eyebrows screwing up in confusion. All she saw was a lot of trees, foliage, and some gentle rises in the land. How in the world did a man tell if there was ore anywhere nearby? “Ye have a spell for this?”
“Not precisely, but I have a spell that will work well enough for this task. It just has a short range, so we will be doing a lot of walking as I’m not sure how far out will need to go. And we will need to find different types of metals to make money out of.”
This part made sense to her immediately. Money was not formed all out of the same type of metal, after all. The worth of the money was dependent upon the metal it was forged from. Copper was not worth much, which was why it was used for the smallest coin. Gold was worth quite a bit which was why most used it for their most valuable coin. Of course they would not be able to deviate from the system. “Ye think ye can find copper and silver and gold here?”
“I’m not as confident about gold and silver. But we should be able to find copper and nickel at the very least. We’re more likely to find gold along the coastline. It tends to collect around salt water.”
Arrows of Promise (Kingmakers Book 2) Page 6